It honestly surprised him when Beltane had decided to join the rest of them at the party. There was something to be said about her presence. At first it brought him a sense of strange comfort, knowing his littermate was there. She would understand him on some level, even with their disconnect and lack of familial bonds. He watched her cooly with hot eyes as she moved opposite of him. Startled when she looked at him, he answered her gaze with a wideness of his own. It was right, but something felt so incredibly wrong. His fur bristled and for the first time he felt a sensation of fear. Something had passed through his sister, and something had passed over him. He stared her down, the dominance and wrath that wrapped it cloak around his life fell away in the communication with his sister. Two beings born of soulbound could speak with no words spoken. Her fear, when their eyes broke, had become his.

He felt Sekhmet move and his eyes snapped to her. Suddenly everything came crashing into him. The feeling of another soul colliding with his as two physical being would collide in battle. The twisting and turning of aggression and fragility wrenched at his very being. The words of his father echoed in his mind. Lessons had been taught to him even outside of a story-time. He had no choice in this, fate had declared this to be so. Fate had written the seal. Balance and the world of nature warred within him. This was different, this was wrong, but the universe had aligned to strike the stars in such a way. There could not be two of one and one lacking on the scales. His very being morphed and struggled with the resurgence of power and being. He could not stop the turn.

Thoth slammed back into himself with a sharp intake of breath, burning eyes wide before narrowing to his own twisted understanding of fate and cruelty. He knew he had been tied. Sekmet had been there, within earshot of the story but he had noticed her attention elsewhere. Thoth wondered if she had heard the tail. He wondered if he had felt the pull. If she knew what had happened, and what it had meant.